


You Need the Dark to See the Stars

by pidgethepidgeon



Series: Beetlejuice Short Stories [22]
Category: Beetlejuice - Perfect/Brown & King
Genre: But mainly fluffy, Charles is trying to be a good dad, Family, Family Bonding, Father-Daughter Relationship, Mourning, angsty-fluff, tw: allusion to previous suicide attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:13:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24070393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pidgethepidgeon/pseuds/pidgethepidgeon
Summary: Growing up in New York City Lydia didn't get a good view of the night sky.
Series: Beetlejuice Short Stories [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1556005
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	You Need the Dark to See the Stars

Having grown up in New York City Lydia was constantly surrounded with the fast-paced life of living in the city. She was used to the chaos that startled tourists, she was one of those people that couldn’t fall asleep if there wasn’t noise coming from somewhere. She had her reservations when her father announced they would be going to Connecticut for a little bit, it was six months after her mother had died and though it probably sounded insane, being at home even though she wasn’t there anymore was a comfort. The walls and floors still had her mother’s imprint. An entire childhood filled with memories held in the creak boards on their front porch. 

It was only going to be for a little bit though, she assumed, maybe getting out of the house would do her some good. Her mom always joked about how city people need to go to the countryside to get some fresh air every now and again, maybe this is just what Lydia needed. It quickly turned out to not be the case, just driving through the endless and monotonous country highways had Lydia itching for ...something to happen. It was too quiet, she thought she was dreaming when she saw a cow on the side of the road at one point. Besides New York the only place she had really been was New Jersey to see her grandparents and once she went to Philadelphia for some kind of class field trip in the second grade. She’d been to upstate New York too but nothing beat pulling up in the rock driveway of the house they’d be staying in. She didn’t understand why her dad had packed so much for this trip, sure it was the end of the school year but he would have told her if they were staying there the whole summer. Regardless she was told to pack almost everything she had and brought it with her on the trip, what was even more confusing was why Delia was tagging along. No matter how long they were staying it was kind of laughable that her dad thought Lydia even needed Delia. 

Everything quickly hit the fan when she learned that they were never going back to New York, that they were all going to live here now. It was rubbing salt in the wound when he proposed to Delia, she hadn’t even known they were dating. She felt like her entire life was being replaced. New home, a new state, and now her dad was getting a new wife. Her mother hadn’t even been dead six months by that point. So much happened those early days of her living in the house, such a wide range of emotions that she didn’t take much notice of anything. It was just survival at that point. 

After a chaotic week that encompassed kicking her father out, terrorizing the neighbors, an exorcism, a green-card marriage, and literally going to hell and back to say that Lydia was exhausted was an understatement. When things slowed down and she wasn’t dealing with exorcisms and possessions every five seconds she started to miss some of the craziness. It was too quiet in the house with all the adults, and ever since Beetlejuice had gone to the Netherworld to go on some vision quest Lydia had been feeling lonely. 

Which she didn’t understand why she had so many people in the house that loved her and things were different now. They listened to her and she was allowed to talk about what she wanted, but being able to hear the wind and the rustling of trees from her bedroom window, it was unnerving. The quiet was dangerous because she was just alone with her thoughts, and she knew that wasn’t always the best place to be. She hardly slept and when she did it was nightmares of what happened, she’d wake up in a panic unable to calm down until she realized it was just a dream. 

A week had passed since Beetlejuice had left, she tossed around the idea of summoning him but she felt selfish for even thinking about it after all she did to him. Instead, she found herself drawn to the roof again...not for the reasons before. She just felt it was where she needed to be. After being careful to not alert any of the adults as to what she was up to she pulled the window shut and stepped onto the flat part of the roof.

She walked over to the edge, careful to hold onto the railing, and just breathed. The chill June air filling her nose and she peered out to the scenery around her. She hadn’t taken notice of it when she was up here the first time, she was so focused on going through with her plan and then Beetlejuice that she hadn’t even realized how beautiful it all was. Trees for miles and miles, street lamps illuminating the main road, neighbors with houses decorated with little quirky nicknacks like flamingos and lawn gnomes. Looking down towards her own backyard and she could see the garden Adam and Barbara must have started before they died, it was illuminated with tiny glowing bugs that she had never seen in person before but knew they were called fireflies. The peaceful coos of nighttime birds, the rushing water from a creek she didn’t even know they had, the slow hum of cars driving past not consistently but enough. She didn’t ever realize how noisy the quiet was, all that was going on. 

She laid down on the roof, with her hands behind her head, and looked up at the night sky. It was a perfect night, not a single cloud in her way. She was amazed by just how clear it all looked. Her mom always talked about how she wanted to take Lydia and her dad on a road trip to get away from the city for a while and just stare up at the sky, she promised Lydia when she was little that they would count all of the stars by the time they were through. Of course, six-year-old Lydia didn’t understand just how many stars there were in the sky, but her mother had been talking about this trip for years. It eventually became a running joke in the family that they would never end up going, but when Emily got sick the joke stopped being funny. The summer before she died they were supposed to go, not a whole road trip but Lydia had planned it all out, saved her money for almost a whole year just to surprise them with a camping trip upstate. They never got to go, she doesn’t even remember the reason why. She had to settle for trying to see the stars from her front porch, with all the tall buildings and light pollution blocking her view. 

Now here she was, not exactly the trip they had planned but she was stargazing. Almost without meaning too, she started counting them, losing track and starting over. She started to doze off when she heard the window creak open. She didn’t react, just went back to mumbling the numbers and drawing pictures by connecting all the white dots. 

“Lydia?” her dad asked, “What are you doing up here? I walked past your room and the door was open and you weren't in your bed.”

“Just wanted some fresh air. It’s so stuffy in my room.”

“You do know you have a window you can open, you don’t have to come on the..incredibly high roof.” 

She glanced up and he was standing right above her head. She smiled at him, “Do you want to join me?”

“Join you?”

Lydia schooced over and patted next to her. He looked hesitant at first but he bent down, and with a typical dad groan he laid on his back and looked up at the sky. He put his hands on his stomach, “What are we looking at?”

“The stars.” Lydia told him, “They’re so clear tonight. When you were a kid did you get to see them a lot? I know you moved to the city for mom, was it hard having that shift in...everything?”

“It was hard, there was a lot to get used to but there was so much new stuff, and of course there was Emily and eventually you. I missed my hometown, but I loved what I had. Do you miss the city?”

Lydia shrugged, “Yeah, I wish you had told me we were moving. I could have maybe prepared myself a little better to have to change everything from a city slicker to a country girl.”

“Change everything?” he laughed

“Everything, dad you brought me to the middle of nowhere in Connecticut and I have no flannel, not camo, and most importantly I don’t even know how to play baseball so now I can’t have my underdog story where I join an all-boys team and wow the crowd because...girls can play baseball.”

“You have never been interested in sports in our life.”

“The point is that I could have been, and now I will never have the cinderella sports story. They could have made a movie about it.”

“Yeah?”

“Mmhh, and they’d get Brad Pitt to play you, my dad who cheered me on at every game.”

“I am so sorry I robbed you and the world of this. If it is any consolation, my life is the opposite of a Hallmark movie. Instead of Emily coming with me to the countryside, or you know just the suburbs, we moved to the big city.”

“Wow, our family missed out on so many movie opportunities. Tragic really.”

For a while they just laid up there, saying nothing. Lydia put her hand down in between them and he held it, just like he did when she was little and came into her parents’ room after having a nightmare. 

“I wish mom got to see this,” she whispered, “that trip we had always planned. We never got to do this with her, she never got to see them.” 

“I wish she could see this too.”

“I miss her.”

“I do too.”

Lydia shifted and looked over at her dad, she could see a faint tear streak going down his face. She didn’t mention it, she just laid back down and moved closer to him. They left space though, almost as if there was a third person between them. Someone else who should have been there looking up at the night sky with their family. 


End file.
